Blue Water (6 page)

“Chelone, Chelone,
that's one helluva name, hope I'm sayin' it right. This is sailing vessel
Rubicon, Rubicon.
Come back,
Chelone.”

To my surprise, Rex lunged for the microphone, sore shoulder and all, and I realized he'd been just as eager as I was for contact.

“Gotcha,
Rubicon
. You're a sight for sore eyes.”

“Ain't that the truth. How you doin' on freshwater?”

“Fine. You in trouble?”

“Just a minute.” There came that high-pitched barking sound, followed by a series of squeals, then the shush of a woman's voice. “Sorry, our little guy gets excited. The membrane on our water maker's fouled.”

“Can't you clean it?” Rex asked.

Rough laughter filled the frequency. “Problem is, you need the cleaning solution to do it. Wife tidied up a few weeks ago, and now we can't find a goddamn thing.”

There was a mild scuffling, followed by a woman's good-natured
voice. “Not that we could find anything before. I don't suppose you have a water maker?”

“Plenty of cleaner, too, I believe.” Rex glanced at me to confirm this; I nodded. “Love to help you out.”

“I'll tell you what,
Chelone
.” Popeye was back on the air. “We've got two pounds of ground chuck we've been saving for a special occasion. Come aboard with that solution, and we'll cook you up the best damn burgers you've ever tasted.”

Meat that did not come out of a can! Even now, I can't recall another invitation I've accepted with such eagerness, such gratitude. While Rex and Popeye (whose name, it turned out, was Eli Hale) worked out the logistics of rafting our boats together, I dug
Chelone
's fenders out of stowage, and by the time I'd dragged them onto deck,
Rubicon
was already closing in. There'd be no time, I realized, to clean myself up, to change out of the filthy shirt I was wearing and into the less-filthy shirt I'd been saving. Dark crescents of dirt frowned beneath my nails. I glanced back at Rex, who was at the helm. He was bare-chested. The waistband of his shorts had rotted through, revealing a gray strip of elastic.

We're the ones, I thought, who look like a plague ship.

But my first glimpse of the Hales put me at ease. Like Rex, Eli was standing at the helm, bare-chested. Like Rex, the shorts he wore had seen happier days. Unlike Rex, however, he was short, heavyset, with dirty blond hair twisted into a thicket of tattered dreads. His belly was spangled with tattoos. Moments later, his wife burst onto the deck in cutoffs and what looked like an old brassier. She was full-chested, freckled, with long red hair pulled back into braids. I liked her instantly. A tangle of fenders fanned out behind her; she flashed me a grin before working them free, expertly tying them along
Rubicon
's hull.

“That should do, don't you think?” she said, eyeing my own row of fenders. Without waiting for an answer, she perched on the combing, legs extended, to fend off the impact of
Chelone
's hull. “I'm Bernadette.”

“Meg. My husband, Rex.”

“Christ almighty,” Eli called, jutting his chin at Rex's shoulder. “What the hell did you do to yourself?”

Rex laughed. “Bet it didn't hurt as much as those tattoos.”

“Can't tell you if they hurt or not,” Eli said. “Drunk as a skunk when I got 'em.”

Our hulls kissed. Bernadette and I traded lines. Five minutes later, I followed Rex aboard, clutching the bottle of cleaning solution like a housewarming bouquet.

“You're a couple of funny-looking angels,” Eli said, “but we're awful glad to see you anyway.”

The Hales, we learned, had been living aboard
Rubicon
for nine years. At the end of each summer, they headed south to the Caribbean; in spring, they made their way north again, eventually arriving in New Bern, North Carolina, where they owned some property. This year, their departure had been delayed by a medical appointment, but Bernadette was still hoping they'd make Houndfish Cay—another four hundred miles to the south—before hurricane season started in earnest. Nearly a hundred cruisers wintered there—Americans, Canadians, a smattering of South Americans and French—anchored in a series of small, sheltered bays. Together, they homeschooled their kids, organized book clubs, participated in talent shows, fishing trips, dine-arounds. There was a pageant at Christmastime, an Easter-egg hunt in April. The Hales had been lots of places, but Houndfish Cay was their favorite.

And of course, their little guy loved it there.

Rex and I exchanged the tolerant glances of people who don't keep pets.

“Where are you folks headed?” Eli asked.

I looked at Rex; he shrugged. “Bermuda, for now. After that, we'll see.”

“Now that's the cruising spirit,” Eli said. “Go where the wind decides to take you.”

Bernadette laughed. “
What
wind?”

Like farmers, the four of us stopped talking for a moment, stared reverently, beseechingly, at the sky.

“Well,” Eli finally said, “I better take a look at that water maker.”

“Need a hand?” Rex asked.

“Won't say no.” He was already in the cockpit, tossing aside cushions and hatch covers, lifting the bench seat to reveal a wide access hole. With amazing agility for a man his size, he slithered down into it. Rex followed, moving deliberately, holding his right arm close to his side.

“Looks like he messed up that shoulder pretty good,” Bernadette said.

Up close, I saw she was younger than me, her pretty face weathered by wind and sun. Eli, on the other hand, seemed ageless. He could have been thirty-five, or sixty. The dreads, the tattoos, the excess weight: each was its own disguise. He reminded me, a little bit, of Toby. It made me like both of them all the more.

“Might have been worse, I guess.”

“Yes.” She responded seriously, as if I'd said something insightful, unique. “No matter what it is, it can always be worse.” She glanced at the sky. “I'm baking. Let's get into the air-conditioning.”

I must have looked surprised. “
Rubicon
has air?”

“You bet,” Bernadette said, unlatching the doors to the companionway. “I told Eli from the start, I'm not going anywhere without AC.” A puff of cool air hit my face, along with the faint, familiar odor of bilge, and something else, something I couldn't quite place: pungent, fruity, unpleasant. Immediately I thought of the dog. But there was no sign or sound of any animal as Bernadette led the way down the stairs.

Despite
Rubicon
's rough-looking exterior, her salon was comfortable, homey, fitted up with custom cupboards and shelves. There was a teak dining table, a desk with a computer, satellite TV. The couch was crowded with homemade pillows and stuffed animals. Framed watercolor island-scapes, signed by Bernadette, were affixed to the bulkheads. Somewhere aft of the galley, a generator hummed, powering the blessed air conditioner. If it weren't for the sounds of Rex and Eli at work—the growl of the water maker, dropped tools, muffled curses—I could have imagined I was back in Fox Harbor, sitting in the living room of somebody's ranch house. That, and the slight gliding feeling of the hull.

And the peculiar smell.

“Have a seat,” Bernadette said, heading for the galley. “What would you like to drink? Apple juice okay?” Again, that flash of grin. “We seem to be low on water.”

“Apple juice would be great.”

I sank onto the couch. The smell seemed stronger here. I could almost place it; I fought the urge to squint, as if that might help me see. And then, there it was: Cindy Ann Kreisler's house. Not the grand place where she lived now, but the farmhouse she'd grown up in, four square rooms off a shotgun hall, divided by stairs that led to the second-story bedrooms, the attic. At the back of the kitchen
was a pantry Dan Kolb had converted to a room for four-year-old Ricky, who couldn't climb stairs, who couldn't walk, in fact, without holding on to a walker. Shelves lined the walls above a chipped countertop; below, there were cupboards, overstuffed with clothing, toys, stickered with Tiggers and Winnie-the-Poohs. A wall-mounted can opener still jutted from the space to the right of the doorway.

“How about crackers and cheese?” Bernadette called.

It was then that I noticed the wheelchair, secured behind the table with floor locks.

“Juice is fine,” I said.

It was smaller than any wheelchair I'd ever seen, with a strangely torqued back, a single footrest. A complicated web of embroidered straps formed a makeshift harness attached to the seat. Beside it sat a teak chest, high as a bench, roughly the size of a coffin. It, too, was affixed to the floor, its cover sealed with latches, a blue and white cushion resting on top. I was leaning forward to study it more closely when Bernadette came with our drinks.

“It's a bathtub, actually,” she said, and she tapped the box with her toe. “Though it doubles as a bench. Eli built it that way. He built all these shelves and our table, too. He even built Leon's wheelchair.”

“Leon?” I was beginning to understand.

“Our little guy,” Bernadette said. “Our son.” She gestured toward a closed door. “He should be up from his nap pretty soon. You folks have kids?”

Perhaps for the first time since Evan's death, the question caught me off guard. I felt my face flush. “Not really,” I managed; then: “Not now. No. No kids.”

If Bernadette thought this was odd, her expression revealed nothing.

“Leon's eleven,” she said. “He nearly died at birth. He can't hear, but he feels vibrations. If the engine isn't running right, he's always the first to know. Actually, I'm surprised he hasn't noticed you're on board.”

With that came the sounds Rex and I had heard over the VHF, followed by a series of scuffling thumps against the bulkhead. Bernadette laughed. “What did I tell you?” She got to her feet, then paused, considering. “It takes awhile, getting him up. You want to come and meet him?”

I was surprised to discover that I did. Back in Fox Harbor, I'd gone out of my way to avoid other people's children. Now, after so many weeks of isolation, the thought of seeing a child, even the child of a stranger, filled me with tenderness. Already, I was regretting the lie I'd told. Already, it seemed too late to take it back.

“It won't upset him?” I asked. “Seeing someone he doesn't know?”

Bernadette shook her head. “He loves people. Especially kids.” More thumps against the bulkhead; she crossed the salon, motioned for me to follow. “That's why we want to make Houndfish Cay. He's got friends there, real friends, boys his age. They come over on their parents' skiffs, hang out with their Game Boys, listen to music. Boat kids, you know, don't judge like kids onshore. I guess they've seen enough of the world to accept when someone's different.”

Her steady blue eyes found mine.

“Everyone's accepting out here,” she said. “Everybody has their story.”

Before I could feel the need to reply, she opened the portal to Leon's stateroom.

I remembered Ricky Kolb, the smell of his room off the kitchen, close-walled, dark. Leon was naked, except for a diaper, lying on his
side. Not much bigger, at eleven, than Evan had been at six. His skeletal limbs wrapped around themselves as if he were made of a single muscle, everything clenched into a fist. Thick blond dreadlocks, like his father's, covered his head, but the wide-set eyes were Bernadette's. When he saw me, tremors of excitement nearly jolted him free of the thick foam wedges that propped him up, supporting his chest, cushioning his knees. It occurred to me that I was looking at the child Evan might have been, had he survived the accident.
Your son would not have been himself
. Doctors had stressed this, family and friends had alluded to it, Rex and I had repeated it to each other like a prayer. Better for him to be at peace than endure a lifetime of disability and pain. You grasp at such comforts the way a drowning person might reach for a piece of barbed wire. Because it is there. Because it is all you have.

“Sweetheart,” Bernadette said, leaning forward so the child could see her mouth. “I've got a surprise for you. This is Meg.”

“Hi, Leon,” I said, leaning forward, too, and then, to Bernadette. “What incredible hair.”

She nodded, sweeping it off his forehead with the flat palm of her hand. “It was like that from the moment he was born. Just as thick.”

I wanted to tell Bernadette about Evan's hair—dusty-blond fuzz that had all fallen out, then grown back in, months later, darker than my own. I swallowed the words, tried again.

“He must have been a baby, still,” I said, “when you and Eli went to sea.”

Bernadette had already changed Leon's diaper, flipped the wet one into the diaper pail. Here, then, was the smell I'd remembered: hand-laundered diapers, hand-laundered sheets. A flushed, wasting body like an overblown rose.

And, in this case, a broken water maker.

No rain for weeks.

What would have happened, I wondered, if Rex and I hadn't drifted into view? But I was learning you simply couldn't think that way. Not out here, where everything, it seemed, was a matter of chance, random luck.

“He wasn't quite two,” she said, tugging a T-shirt over his head. “Everybody thought we were crazy.”

I couldn't imagine it myself. “Weren't you scared?”

“I'm always scared,” she said. “But he's outlived every prediction. And he's happy. That's what's important. Right, guy?” She bent to face him again. “You're a survivor, isn't that so?”

Leon jerked his head. Once again, tremors ran, like ripples, through his body. I glanced at Bernadette, concerned, but she was smiling broadly.

“Didn't I tell you?” she said, jutting her chin at the portal overhead. “He always knows.”